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Welcome to the smackdown, where we pit chef vs. chef to make a dish according to a theme. We pick the dish or ingredient, and the chefs cook up their versions. I taste both and choose a winner. Competing chefs supply recipes so you can recreate their dishes at home and test for yourself. If you try both recipes and prefer the one that didn’t win, feel free to question the verdict!

Ah yes ... trout. It can be fried, poached, or steamed. And, hey, why not grilled on the barbecue? That delicate-fleshed, freshwater fish that’s related to salmon, yet far less ubiquitous. A favourite of bears and eagles, trout is quite rare on upscale restaurant menus where the more aristocratic Arctic char is favoured over the common salmon and the underappreciated trout. Chances are if there’s trout on a menu, it will be in tartare or smoked form.

Mistake, say our two competitors, two of Quebec’s top chefs. They requested trout be the ingredient of choice over the suggested salmon. Both were happy about trout’s farmed status, which obliterates the possibility of them employing an unsustainable species.

Chef Danny St-Pierre uses trout he acquires in his Sherbrooke restaurant from East Hereford in the Eastern Townships, while chef Martin Juneau’s trout is purchased from a fish farm in Nova Scotia. Both opted for a type of trout called “truite saumonée,” a larger fish from the rainbow trout family with salmon-pink-coloured flesh, a result not from some sort of Franken-fish crossbreeding, but of its feed.

Having enjoyed brook-fished baby trout flash-fried in a pan over a campfire in Alberta, I know how sweet, moist and melting and superb trout flesh can be. Yet I also grew up recoiling at the sight of those supermarket boxed rainbow trout in my home freezer wrapped in blue plastic and frozen so stiff their tails snapped off when you hit them with the ice-cream container. No doubt about it, trout could use a publicist, an agent and some TLC from the foodies.

For us amateur cooks to appreciate this inexpensive yet full flavoured fish, I placed the challenge to create the ultimate trout dish for home cooks.

The buzz

Could you ask for a better smackdown duo? These gentlemen are arguably the two hottest young chefs on the scene right now. Both have sharp restaurants, both hosted TV cooking programs last year and both have a mastery of ingredients – especially local ingredients – shared by few. These boys can cook, they’re competitive and they’re even good friends, having worked together from 2002 to 2004 at the Laval restaurant Derrière les Fagots, where St-Pierre was chef and Juneau a commis.

Today, these two are on equal footing and are churning out some pretty spectacular plates. Juneau’s style is more flamboyant (think gussied-up comfort food), while St-Pierre keeps his cuisine along more traditional upscale comfort food lines. That said, despite the occasional risky flavour combinations, if there’s one thing these boys don’t do is make mistakes. Watching them chop, fry, select and assemble their food is a real pleasure. Someone give these two their own cooking show!

The advantage

Hard to say. Both are so strong. Creatively, though, Juneau has the edge. Nothing this chef makes is predictable. And yet that’s just what could give St-Pierre a leg up. His emphasis on simplicity might result in a more pure dish.

Juneau

When Juneau pulled a large pink sausage ring out of the fridge, I knew it was game on. His take on trout was to make a hot dog out of it, but not just any hot dog, a Korean-inspired hot dog with a homemade milk bread bun, homemade kimchi, a squiggle of ginger mayonnaise, cilantro and shaved carrot.

Though a bit messy to eat, the flavour was incredible, with the ginger adding a peppery hit and the cilantro adding that exotic edge. This eyebrow-raising combo was utterly original, so huge points for Juneau for that. Even St-Pierre gave it a thumbs-up while gobbling down the whole thing.

St-Pierre

The chef played it cool as he placed his trout filet inside a square of parchment paper.

“This dish is inspired by one made by my Uncle Joe on the grill, who wrapped the trout in foil over a mix of potatoes and onion. It was the first fish dish I ate that wasn’t a fish stick.”

His generous filet of trout was set atop an unctuous mix of new potatoes and onion beurre blanc. The whole was wrapped in parchment and baked for 15 minutes. St-Pierre then slid the entire package onto a plate and served it alongside a slaw that included trout roe, baby spinach, green beans and almonds – a nod to the classic French dish “trout amandine.” The slaw was delicious, the potato-onion mix even more so. But what hooked me here was the trout, so pure and perfectly cooked, the star of this comfort food show.

The verdict

Ah, a close-to-impossible choice to make. On one hand, Juneau’s brilliantly creative hot dog, so unpredictable and interesting. And on the other, St-Pierre’s mastery of simplicity. But what counts most in a smackdown is not the dish, but the use of the ingredient. As much as I adored Juneau’s hot dog, the trout flavour got lost in the mix, whereas in St-Pierre’s dish, the fish was front-row-centre. Also, his recipe is more accessible to the home cook. Trout smackdown goes to Danny St-Pierre.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees F. In a medium-sized saucepan over medium-high heat, sweat the onions and garlic with two tablespoons of the butter. Deglaze with the wine and reduce the liquid by half, add cream and off the heat, stir in the remaining butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Lay the pieces of parchment paper on your counter, divide the onion sauce by placing some in the middle of each sheet. Top with the slices of cooked potato and then the scallions. Place a fish filet atop each. Season with salt and pepper, and loosely wrap wallet style, being sure the packages are well-sealed. Place the four packages on a cookie sheet.

Cook for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Slide each package onto a plate, unwrap the steaming package and serve immediately with the slaw.

Buttermilk Slaw

Serves 4

For the dressing:

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon grainy mustard

1 teaspoon good-quality commercial mayonnaise

For the salad:

1 tablespoon trout roe

1 tablespoon slivered toasted almonds

1 cup green beans, blanched and cut into small pieces

1/2 cup baby spinach

Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing. In a bowl, toss the salad ingredients together with the dressing. Serve immediately alongside the papillote.

Combine the trout and pork fat and season with the salt and chili flakes. Pass through the meat grinder, and then, using a sausage maker or pastry bag, push the mix into the sausage casing, leaving as little air as possible. Twist the sausage into four links. Blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds, slice the sausage into four wieners, and then finish cooking the sausage on a grill until golden on all sides. Place each in a bun. Top with kimchi, carrot, ginger mayonnaise, scallions and cilantro. Serve immediately with a wedge of lime.

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